BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – The conservative anti-tax group Club For Growth has launched an ad attacking Will Brooke, a Republican candidate for Alabama's 6th Congressional District, as being a "liberal" due to donations he made in the past to Democrats. In response, the Brooke campaign has strongly disputed the "liberal" characterization in the Club's ad, calling it "deceitful," and highlighted Brooke's history of donations to Republican candidates.

The ad, "Follow the Money," is a 30-second video spot paid for by Club for Growth's Super PAC arm, Club for Growth Action. The ad says Brooke, a Harbert Management executive, gave thousands of dollars to "liberal Democrats in Congress," and $10,000 to a Democratic gubernatorial candidate.

The ad also says that Brooke's company donated $250,000 for the Campaign for Alabama PAC, which supported the ratification of the Alabama Excellence Initiative Fund in 2003 -- commonly called Amendment 1 and supported by then-Republican Gov. Bob Riley -- which would have raised some taxes to fund expanded education and other initiatives in Alabama.

"That's liberal, that's Will Brooke," the ad says. The ad has been seen on TV stations in the Birmingham metro area.

Brooke's campaign released a statement Tuesday morning and called the ad "deceitful." Brooke hit back at Club for Growth and at Indian Springs orthopedic surgeon Chad Mathis, another Republican who Club for Growth has endorsed in the AL-06 race, in a public statement Tuesday morning and in a statement to AL.com Tuesday afternoon.

"Will is obviously not a liberal," the Brooke campaign said in a statement to AL.com Tuesday afternoon. "He has contributed over the years over half-a-million dollars to conservative campaigns and causes, dating all the way back to Reagan and then to the early nineties working with Republicans and Karl Rove to overhaul the courts in Alabama and subsequently turn the state legislature Republican."

The campaign said Mathis and the Club wouldn't know about that, as "Chad was in Indiana at that time where his ties to the state were tenuous at best."

"It's laughable to think that a big-money Washington, D.C., group adept at one thing, drive-by politics, can change the outcome of an election for and by Alabamians," the campaign's public statement read. "The Club and their chosen candidate Chad Mathis lack both connections to and the values of Alabama."

While the Club for Growth did endorse Mathis, as a Super PAC it is prohibited by law from coordinating with him or his campaign or any other candidates. However, the Super PAC may make independent expenditures in favor of particular candidates.

"Having dark money groups hit your opponents without your name on it is anything but a profile in courage," Brooke's statement continues. "The only thing that this proves is that Chad Mathis is threatened by the conservative and solutions-focused candidacy of Will Brooke, a real Alabamian who has Alabama values."

View full sizeChad Mathis at Alabama Media Group in Birmingham, Alabama on Monday April 21, 2014. (Frank Couch/fcouch@al.com)

Mathis's campaign responded to AL.com Tuesday, noting that the "Follow the Money" ad "was made by the Club for Growth, not our campaign."

"We are disappointed Will Brooke is making xenophobic statements," Mathis campaign manager Dean Petrone said. "I also noticed that Will Brooke did not deny a single accusation in the ad. Period. The fact of the matter is he gave big money to Democratic candidates who support Obamacare and abortion. Those may be Will Brooke's values, but they don't represent Alabama values."